Use Recycled Household Paper Products

If the Bush Administration isn't going to forward Greenpeace's causes, at least we can...

Use Recycled Household Paper Products

Did you know that the Bush administration tried to sue Greenpeace (the case was thrown out of court)? Following a Greenpeace protest of illegal mahogany from Brazil being brought to the US, the Attorney General went after Greenpeace on the basis of an obsolete law. You can hear about it from Bobby Kennedy's radio show here.

Well, if the Bush administration's idea of "Healthy Forests" is what Al Franken calls "No Tree Left Behind," we can take up the issue ourselves.

Greenpeace reports that Kimberly-Clark (the company that makes Kleenex brand disposable tissues) has been up to no good. Hard to believe, right? They have been violating Canadian forests, so Canadians you might need to shed your usually nice demeanors and get really pissed off!

At present, Kimberly-Clark uses pulp and paper made from clearcut ancient forests. These forests include the largest tract of ancient forest left in North America: Canada’s boreal forest, home to caribou, wolves, eagles, 30 percent of American songbirds, and bears, and essential in fighting global climate change.

In North America, less than 19 percent of the pulp that Kimberly-Clark uses for its disposable tissue products comes from recycled sources – well below the sector average. The rest comes from forests such as Canada’s boreal. Most of the recycled fiber that Kimberly-Clark does use goes directly into tissue products sold to institutions. The disposable tissue products that you buy at your local grocery store - toilet paper, tissue and napkins - usually contain no recycled fiber whatsoever.

Numerous other companies are taking steps not to source or sell endangered forest products. Kimberly-Clark, the largest tissue product company in the world, has the capacity to make a much higher percentage of its products from recycled fiber. However, in 2003 it chose to use nearly three million tons of virgin fiber to produce products that are literally flushed down the toilet.

In response to this senseless destruction, we are demanding that Kimberly-Clark

* Stop using wood fiber from endangered forests such as the boreal forest. * Stop producing tissue products using only virgin wood fibers and instead maximize the percentage of post-consumer recycled content in all of its products. * Turn to Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) eco-certified forestry operations for what virgin wood fibers it does use.

The Alternative

If Kleenex is out, what's a better choice? You can get recycled Seventh Generation products online (in addition to that link, they provide a list of online retailers at the Seventh Generation website) or in person at retailers like Whole Foods or a natural foods coop.